KILLING WEEDS
Weeding is the boy's job, isn't it? If only one could get some kind of inspiration into weeding, so as to rob the work of its drudgery!
If we must serve our time at weeding, let us at least weed intelligently. What is a weed anyhow? In Germany, I am told, the peasants call weeds "Unkraut". Since "Kraut" is cabbage, "Unkraut" must be weeds.
A weed is really a plant growing where we don't want it. The worst weed in a hill of four corn stalks is the fourth stalk of corn that crowds the others. The worst weeds in a row of beets are the little beet plants that crowd each other. What a plague they are!
Some of the plants we usually include among our "coarse native weeds" are grown in gardens in Europe. Mullein, for example, over there is called "the American velvet plant" and a well-grown specimen is really handsome.
If weeds are plants out of place there is much to be done by boys and girls in the way of ridding gardens, lawns, school grounds, and village streets of their overgrowth of weeds. If you clear out one thing put in something better or nature may put in some plant that will not please you. Save seeds from your own garden and drop them along the roadside.
The school grounds are the particular province of the school boys and girls. Join together to make the grounds more beautiful and there is no end to the improvements that will follow.
A lecturer once visited the school in a small village in the state of New York. On his way from the village to the school-house he was impressed with two things: first, the wonderful size and vigour of the burdocks that seemed to have possession of even the front yards on the business streets; and, second, the quantity of rubbish accumulated on the margin of the pretty little stream which wandered under the bridges of the town. Do boys and girls know what public spirit is? Do you know how your little village strikes a stranger? The lecturer was so struck by the sad state of the town that he made up his mind to talk to the school about it. He did. He found that public spirit was not dead there; it was only dormant. The boys and girls had passed by the burdocks so often during their growth that they had taken them for granted. They had so often thrown papers, broken dishes, worn-out baskets, barrels, and rubbish over the bridges that they forgot to notice how it looked. What else is an old creek like that good for anyhow? Can't go swimmin' in it.
Before the man finished his sociable little talk with the boys and girls he had organized the younger ones into brigades of twenty to make war on the burdocks. With the help of teachers and boys he mapped out the town and assigned given localities to certain groups. Each group had a captain with orders. The lecturer had a burdock plant brought in, a tremendous one, root and all, from the school yard. He showed the boys and girls how well adapted this weed is to make a living, how by means of burs it steals rides, travelling from place to place, dropping a few seeds here and a few there. He showed them the tough, long root and told them the plant's life history. Has the burdock any vulnerable spot they wondered? The only time when burdock is weak is when it comes up as a seedling. One scrape of the hoe would kill hundreds then.
Hearing what was up at school, an enterprising business man offered to give ten dollars to the squad of pupils who brought in the largest number of burdock plants. This added zest to the work and a generous emulation. Before the week was up, the town was rid of burdocks, and there were wagon loads of them withering on the vacant lot near the school. The squad that won the prize brought in upwards of seven hundred plants, root and branch. They donated the money to the school library.
The boys and girls in that village didn't need to be waked up but once. They went to work on the little stream. They had bonfires at the water's edge. They planted willows and other water loving trees on the banks, they asked the selectmen to pass a law to forbid the throwing of rubbish and sewage into the stream. They enforced the law themselves. Then they built two little dams, and made a skating pond right near the school house.